American Express Membership Rewards - Centurion advice needed

Hi All,
So I got approved for a centurion card yesterday, and with it's 7.5k initial startup fee, I would like someone to tell me whether or not I should get the card.

Currently I used 3 main cards:
Amex SPG (apprx 75k monthly spend)
mastercard aadvantage (approx 50k monthly spend)
amex plantinum (apprx 40k monthly spend)

My main airline is AA, and I have a whole bunch of points in my amex plantinum that I don't know what to do with. I usually transfer my spg over to aa (20k for 25k miles)

Most of my paid travels is to china. Canton to be exact, and the only airline that flies direct from LAX is China Southern. Which if i remember correctly is a member of sky team. So amex business class buy 1 get 1 free is no good. They actually quoted me 10k for a flight last week which went through Japan. I can get business on China Southern for apprx 2k, so the card is useless for me in that aspect. I travel on vacation apprx 4 times a year, so the hotels on centurion might come in handy, not sure though.

I used the amex platinum concierge service twice. The first time to get my dinner reservations in Paris at talivant (sp), and they couldn't come through. The second time, i asked for olympic opening ceremony tickets, and they came back with 5k for 3rd best pricing seats and 7.5k for best seats. Just 5 minutes on google, and I was able to find seats for apprx 1.5k. So useless there as well. I did like the gift of flowers for xmas, and read on here that centurion holders got much better gifts.

So my question is, what kind of perks would be beneficial to me besides being to flash this hunk of metal when i'm checking out at walmart? =) Can someone point out the major differences between plat and centurion? Should I jump the gun and give them 7.5k?

One other question, should I get the card under my business or personal? What's the main difference? I reason I ask, is that I am currently restructuring my business from a llc to a scorp, and they said if i sign up for centurion now, i will have to pay another 5k to change the fed id tax number. So i figured i might as well put it under my personal ssi.

thanks for all that reply.

Here are the differences between plat and cent:

http://jblackbelt14628.googlepages.com/

Go for the personal cent. I have both and there is better gifts from personal and the club5c has proven to be quite useful at per se and french laundry in securing reservations. The only benefit that comes on business is the free use of office space while travelling which is quite nice. Gift wise the only thing I got for business was a leather keeper with some blank thank you cards while on personal they send out camaras, jewlery gift certs etc.

The gifts are not automatically sent to everyone, as you'll see from the long thread about the camera. I did get the camera, but it was the first gift I'd received from Centurion in 4-5 years of membership.

Depending on your vacation travel pattern, the elite status on DL, CO, VS and US may be useful.

I've had good service from Avis as a President's Club member, based on Centurion. Priority Pass comes in handy, again depending on your travel patterns and whether you would already have lounge access.

The Buyer's Assurance program with extended warranty is better for Centurion as they will extend a manufacturer's warranty for an equal amount of time to the original warranty up to 3 years, whereas for Platinum it's just up to one year.

Whether something is worth it is always going to be subjective. Personally, I find the initiation fee to be a deal-breaker and wouldn't join today if I had to pay that, whereas others think even the $2,500 annual fee is too steep for the benefits.

Susan

My experience, like many others, is to have the Centurion card for the perks and airline status but to rarely use it - many of us do most of our charging on the Starwood AMEX just like you. At 75,000 Starpoints/month (or 900,000 per year!), you should NEVER have to pay for a vacation! You could even use double points to get suites whenever you want.

In addition, I have found that transferring those Starpoints to Cathay Pacific gets the best yield (by far) in terms of business and first class travel.

If you are usually traveling first class or business class, there's not too much benefit from the Centurion card over Platinum - you'll get priority boarding and all of the other perks by virtue of the ticket.

But like most things - if you want it, all of the analysis in the world doesn't matter!

hi,

call up amex, send them copies of all your creditcards statements.

tell them that you might shift your spending to the centurion if you get the card for free.

with this amounts you could be lucky...

i have a centurion, but i think if you cly CZ to china you dont need the centurion card.

platinum gives you the same amount of points and almost the same benefits, centurion is nothing special anymore, so its a waste of money.

dp

for me the most valuable thing would be the hotel upgrades.

lots of discussion here, and good summary of benefits at this site as well > http://www.geocities.jp/ctwxg845/comparison.html

hi,

call up amex, send them copies of all your creditcards statements.

tell them that you might shift your spending to the centurion if you get the card for free.

with this amounts you could be lucky...

i have a centurion, but i think if you cly CZ to china you dont need the centurion card.

platinum gives you the same amount of points and almost the same benefits, centurion is nothing special anymore, so its a waste of money.

dp

Did you get ur centurion card w/out the initial startup fee? Has anyone had sucess w/ them waiving the initiation fee?

I would be very interested to hear if anyone gets Centurion fees reduced based upon annual spending in the $500K - $1M range!

Also, does anyone have a Centurion Business card and grant additional Centurions to employees? Do you know how the fees and benefits work for that?

For example, I might be able to justify spending $5K+$2,500/yr for a Business Centurion card, if I can add employees for $1,500/yr each, assuming they'd get full perks with no initiation fee?

PS: If there is a better place on FT for discussing Centurion issues, please let me know. I wish there was a dedicated forum for credit and credit card issues irrespective of miles&points.

Did you get ur centurion card w/out the initial startup fee? Has anyone had sucess w/ them waiving the initiation fee?

i have my centurion card for over 8years .. so the time i signed up there were no signup fee ...

i have held it since that time as i dont pay a cent for it but i would cancel it if i had to pay 1500usd or more a year as i have the highest status in all hotel and airline programs anyway, and centurion gives only middle status on hotel programs etc.

i dont think that you need the centurion, its a waste of money, but i would certainly try to send in the statesments of your other cards and let them decide if they want to waive the fee.

i know two persons who spend more than 3.000.000usd per year and they are not paying the yearly fee (but these are not us centurions but european cards)

its possible

dp

2 posters have reportedly had fees for their platinum cards refunded for "7 digit" (wording used IIRC) annual spending.

you are required to spend $250K/year simply to qualify for cent..

amex "membership rewards" forum is de facto forum for all things amex.

initiation fee only applies to primary card, not additional cards..

I have phone up the CS and ask for a lowering of the annual fee (HK card). They offered some MR reward points for free. You could try that.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone gets Centurion fees reduced based upon annual spending in the $500K - $1M range!

Also, does anyone have a Centurion Business card and grant additional Centurions to employees? Do you know how the fees and benefits work for that?

For example, I might be able to justify spending $5K+$2,500/yr for a Business Centurion card, if I can add employees for $1,500/yr each, assuming they'd get full perks with no initiation fee?

PS: If there is a better place on FT for discussing Centurion issues, please let me know. I wish there was a dedicated forum for credit and credit card issues irrespective of miles&points.

I highly doubt Amex will reduce fees for that spending range. Our family business spends close to $1MM yearly and we they haven't reduced fees at all.

And yes, that is how the business Centurion works. Main account holder pays the 2500 +initiation, and the additional cards are simply $1500 each and get all the same benefits IIRC.

AmEx UK will waive UK Centurion fee if you dump a large amount of money into an account with its Private Banking arm. I beleive it was $500k, but I think that may have gone down.

you used to get 2 free plat if you had $500K with ameriprise, but no longer.

Amex Centurion CSR said if you get a business centurion, you can't transfer it to a personal one in the future without repaying the $5K in fees. (BTW, they were very non-negotiable with the fees).

Thus, it is a big (one-time) decision whether to get the business or the personal edition if you are the owner of a small business!

Has anyone had any luck (in the modern Centurion-era of 2007+) "transferring" from business centurion to personal without repaying an initiation fee?

I wonder what happens if you get the centurion business and then transfer ownership of the business at a later date? If you can't "keep" the Centurion membership, can the new owner of the business "keep" it? I suppose AMEX doesn't necessarily see it as a fungible asset...

I wonder what happens if you get the centurion business and then transfer ownership of the business at a later date? If you can't "keep" the Centurion membership, can the new owner of the business "keep" it? I suppose AMEX doesn't necessarily see it as a fungible asset...

I think with the Amex bus cards, they are basically an extension of your personal credit. Notice when you apply for the bus cards they basically ask for personal information more then they ask for business information.

I wish there was a dedicated forum for credit and credit card issues irrespective of miles&points.

I wish there was a dedicated forum for Centurion card holders, as there seems to be more here on FT than anywhere else I've seen.

do you get a centurion card with a new number, or can you have your platinum card number be your new centurion #?

you get a new # unless you can get some special exception (unlikely).